Our Red Sea Reefer 350

[tyger]

Cute.

 

[hillie]

....mmm, and a cat.........and a hammer...............

 

[tyger]

Tanks looking better and better.

 

[hillie]

thanks Tyg :flirt:

 

[tyger]

Ooooo I do like it when someone flutters their eye lids at me .

 

[hillie]

LOL....... better than fluttering my empty purse Hysterical

 

[tyger]

HystericalHystericalHysterical

 

[JayTee]

Nice scooter, just make sure there's enough food for him. They are sometimes difficult to feed.

 

[BoPeep]

Hello everyone (even lurkers) :icon_salut: ..... rather manic week so haven't had a chance to come on TSB.

The tank seems to be settling down. Today's tests:

Alk 3.3
KH 9.3
Calcium 440
Mag 1305
nitrite 0
pH 8
phos 0
temp 25
Nitrate 10

I think these are all acceptable bearing in mind we added some fish. The reactor is chogging along nicely and I emptied the skimmer cup today....gee dark oozy stuff in there Due a water change on Sunday, so should bring the params into line a bit more.

View attachment 129448

Hi Hillie,

Just been catching up and I noticed you posted your test readings up today.


When you do tests I notice that you include Alk and KH which I always had as the same thing.

Your Alk of 3.3meq/l works out to be 9.24dKH but my question is do you have 2 different tests for each or are you just using 1 test and including both result readings?

I am just curious as what method you are using.

With regards to your Phosphate, I would consider trying to get it up a nudge from 0 to 0.02 because of the corals you are adding.

Anyway, just observations and suggestions but everything seems to be ticking along nicely.

As fot the skulls, I really cant get them to go on me....sorry but each to their own.

 

[hillie]

Nice scooter, just make sure there's enough food for him. They are sometimes difficult to feed.

Hi JayTee... thanks for commenting... can you advise if there is anything we should be adding other than the normal frozen/flakes/pellets? The last thing we want is to not cater for his needs :w00t:

 

[hillie]

[MENTION=23506]BoPeep[/MENTION] ..... I've taken photos of the test kit we use...

eek. Sorry to make you turn your head to read them!! It shows both values....Alk and KH. What is a bit confusing, and I'm glad you asked this question, because I keep meaning to ask what people do.......the test kit jumps in 2's so does one go with the higher reading or lower reading if the actual reading falls in between the two?

With regards to the phos..........to be honest, I would feel a bit nervous about purposefully raising or lowering any of the params whilst the tank is still settling in, but thank you for alerting us to keep a eye out............ I have read somewhere that our choice of corals actually need some nitrate and phos to flourish, so it is something I have stored in one of those sections at the back of my mind LOL !!

I think Sid is a marmite..........love him or hate him..........but I haven't finished my project yet :jester: so keep watching ......even I don't know if it will be successful and am taking a chance on posting all these photos heehehehehe..... might end up with a right old red face when it all goes belly up !!!!

I am very appreciative of all remarks and comments.......... ray:

 

[BoPeep]

@BoPeep ..... I've taken photos of the test kit we use...

View attachment 129469View attachment 129470 eek. Sorry to make you turn your head to read them!! It shows both values....Alk and KH. What is a bit confusing, and I'm glad you asked this question, because I keep meaning to ask what people do.......the test kit jumps in 2's so does one go with the higher reading or lower reading if the actual reading falls in between the two?

With regards to the phos..........to be honest, I would feel a bit nervous about purposefully raising or lowering any of the params whilst the tank is still settling in, but thank you for alerting us to keep a eye out............ I have read somewhere that our choice of corals actually need some nitrate and phos to flourish, so it is something I have stored in one of those sections at the back of my mind LOL !!

I think Sid is a marmite..........love him or hate him..........but I haven't finished my project yet :jester: so keep watching ......even I don't know if it will be successful and am taking a chance on posting all these photos heehehehehe..... might end up with a right old red face when it all goes belly up !!!!

I am very appreciative of all remarks and comments.......... ray:

Alk and KH are the same and the chart you have simply is a measurement in meg/l and dKH.

Think of it like the measurement of temperature, we have both Celsius and Fahrenheit and the same can be applied with dKH and meg/l.

With regards to the increments of 2 to get your reading, it does not make that much of a difference. If you have an "in between" you simply go in the middle of both the results.

Since you have corals your Phosphate levels could, ideally, be bumped up to 0.02 as the "target" is between 0.01 and 0.03 but who made the rule book and if they are doing well I would not tinker with them at their current levels. Once you get into the danger zone then you need to act. Over 0.05ppm and rising then I would be worried.

As for higher levels of Nitrates being beneficial for corals......I would say a certain no no. All corals are not the same and I believe that LPS and soft corals have a greater tolerance to higher Nitrate levels than SPS corals but getting the balance right is the key hence the need for stability. A happy medium is needed and for me I would be happy with Nitrate levels to be below 5. I have an issue with them at the moment but it is being dealt with and I have every confidence I will be in my happy range soon enough before I see anything negative.

I think you are doing great but I would suggest you set ranges for your parameters and try to stick with them. If some are out slightly there is no need to be reactive, take the proactive approach and you will find the stability that works for you.

 

[JayTee]

Hi JayTee... thanks for commenting... can you advise if there is anything we should be adding other than the normal frozen/flakes/pellets? The last thing we want is to not cater for his needs :w00t:

I have read that they have similar needs to mandarins and need pods and other live foods that they sift from the sand. Perhaps (hopefully) yours will feed on the foods mentioned. I'm no expert by the way but thought it worth a mention.

 

[Reign86]

Nice scooter blenny [MENTION=14848]hillie[/MENTION] I had one of these in my very first nano tank amazing creatures although picky eaters! +1 for what [MENTION=14702]JayTee[/MENTION] is saying they prefer live foods like pods and anything they can get from picking at the rock and sand. As your tank is still relatively a youngun it might be worth seeing if your lfs sells bags of live pods to keep him content.

 

[BoPeep]

I have read that they have similar needs to mandarins and need pods and other live foods that they sift from the sand. Perhaps (hopefully) yours will feed on the foods mentioned. I'm no expert by the way but thought it worth a mention.

if you look at your glass I should imagine you have thousands of tiny pods all over. They will be millions over everything.

 

[hillie]

We have marine snow, which I believe is phytoplankton and zooplankton........is this similar to copepods? or only good for the corals?

 

[hillie]

Sid Junior coming along nicely :taunt:

 

[superdart]

Nice Scooter but if its feeding on frozen Mysis and Artemia dont give it live pods as it may not want to go back onto frozen and then starve.

 

[hillie]

Yes, the scooter is feeding on frozen :thumbup1:

 

[hillie]